super trawlers are fishing the oceans clean of fish

 Aboard ocean fishery support ship Miranda.

January 1976, Arctic Ocean, storm force 12, sea temperature 3 degrees (the sea never falls below 3 degrees).

Sea survival time in a survival suit 10/15 minutes.

Chance of rescue after falling overboard, nil.

Two engineers from the Miranda go across to save the distressed and sinking trawler Benella.

Trawler skipper gives them a 7-foot cod and a crate of Newcastle Brown Ale as a reward. The fish is stored in Miranda's hospital mortuary.

There are no longer 7-foot cod anywhere in the world's oceans because of overfishing by massive super trawlers.

The trawlers of the 1970s have grown into super freezer trawlers that are emptying the seas.

https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/challe.../sustainable-fishing/

How Cummings used Facebook to win Brexit and the 2019 election

He copied the method Trump used to suppress voting but the Brexit campaign urged people who normally wouldn't vote to go and vote for Brexit.

Most of us look at the Facebook profile of our friend's friend's profiles and the profiles of people who have liked other people's posts to find out more.

Dominic Cumming took this to a whole new level in the Brexit and 2019 election campaigns. He was successful in both and, in my view has done enormous damage to Britain.

This is how he did it. it's important for the sake of democracy to know this.

Working with AggregateIQ which grew out of Cambridge Analytica, which grew out of British Military Intelligence which is the best in the world and I should know because I used to teach this subject to British Army majors and half colonels.

We used focus groups and human applied creative thinking. 

AggregateIQ used machine learning and AI to speed up the gathering of information, refine the results and even define the exact messages aimed at specific groups and down as far as individual influencers.

1. Enter keywords relevant to Brexit into Facebook search.

2. Log and record posts that use the same keywords.

3. Refine keywords into phrases, and then refine them into long tail phrases.

4.  Match phrases to users and note users whose posts generate the most interaction, likes, comments etc. Class these as influencers. Log exactly what these people say. Look for posts that get lots of likes, shares and comments and remember them.

5. Log all the people who interact with influencers.

6. (Automatically) Generate posts that resonate with the influencers. Use the same language tone, words and messages.

7. Set up temporary companies around the world, called superpacs. These are used to get around UK laws governing election funding.

8. Use 'dark cash' in this case much of it came from alt free market American billionaires and it's said, though no one knows for certain, that Russia also donated.

9. The Superpacs buy highly targeted Facebook advertising. Targeted to the individual level in the case of influences and using messages using the same words and phrases used by influences to targeted groups. There are a variety of message types. Cummings mainly used fear, ethnic and, keeping within the law, racial fears and concerns.

The advertisements have to use the word sponsored but they are made to look like posts from credible sources. Weak counter messages from less credible sources are also used; this adds to the overall credibility.

It only just succeeded.

In the British version of democracy only a relatively small number of voters are needed to win (or lose) elections.

Johnson knew of Cummings' Facebook antics and hired him to win the 2019 election, which he did using the same methods outlined above.

Although the Tories have a large 80 seat majority only a small number of highly targeted voters and highly targeted constituencies were needed to bring it about.

How to build council houses the winning way

 

How to build council housing where everyone wins

And how Ukraine will be rebuilt when the war is over.

Standard Keynesian thought is that governments get a return on infrastructure investment from the taxes on the extra jobs created and from the increased consumption. This is true and it works in practise but it seems too complicated for classical economists to grasp.

So here's a model that combines Keynes and Friedman

1. The government borrow money from an investment bank or fund perhaps like the one Rishi Sunak worked for.

2. The Government lend money to councils to build houses at a higher rate of interest that they pay the investment bankers.

3. Councils build council houses creating thousands of jobs in the process earning rental income that is higher than the interest on the government loans. In due course, the rental income pays off the government loans and can be used to improve services.

4. All the infrastructure work is done using existing British resident Labour and British made products. Reshoring where necessary further benefitting the UK economy and working along with the ideas in the Brexit campaign.

5. The government still benefits from increased taxes paid through job creation and through consumer spending.

6. Families are securely housed bringing prosperity to the indigenous population and to the millions of migrants the Tories are inviting to Britain.

dark clouds of dark cash

 

Elon Musk must not be allowed to buy Twitter

because he'll have to go to dark cash brokers to do it.

Alt (ultra) free speech is close to alt free markets.

But unrestrained free speech and free markets are damaging to people, economies and in the end the world.

One of the main reasons Musk must not be allowed to buy Twitter is that he hasn't got the cash, despite being a paper billionaire. No bank would back him.

He'd have to go to 'dark cash' billionaires around the world, including directly or indirectly Russia and the public square head lopping, flogging, hand and foot chopping Saudis.

• The dodgy dark cash that indirectly backs the Tories.
• The dark cash that backed Cummings' and AggregateIQ's Facebook tricks in the Brexit campaign.
• The dodgy dark cash that funds alt (ultra) free market think tanks the father of which is the Institute of Economic Affairs.
• Dodgy dark cash that spawned Sunak, Javid and others that have sneaked into the naive Conservative party.

Dark cash that's hitting you, your family your friends, your employer and your workmates with the failed 18th century economic ideology.

Brilliantly, but deceptively marketed by the growing number of dodgy dark cash supported alt free market think tanks!

Musk must not get his hands on Twitter!

Proscription of Labour groups seeking to overthrow capitalism

 Proscription!

Not a commonly used word and one that's unexpected in Labour circles where debate and discourse have always been part of the Party's life.

Alliance for Workers Liberty and Socialist Appeal.

As they stand they don't belong in a British political party that seeks to put its aims into practise through Parliament, local councils and similar democratic institutions. Neither of these two groups' stated aims fit well with this democratic, election based aim of the Labour party.

They both want to 'overthrow' capitalism. One of these groups wants to achieve this through methods advocated by Lenin and Trotsky. This is violent revolution. This is not compatible with the Labour party's aims.

My interpretation of Labour's socialist left is that socialism would be brought in after winning an election where there was a clear mandate for socialist policies and measures.

One of the groups in question is openly Marxist which is fair enough (Marx, with a touch of Hegal, got me good marks as a student).

Marx's prediction was capitalism would undergo a series of ever worsening crises until it eventually collapsed to be replaced by a socialist system.

I believe the British economy is at this point of a total collapse. When this happens the government will have no choice but to take over the running of the whole economy.

There's no other choice.

Depending on what the government does, we'll either get socialism as Marx predicted for a while, or we'll get fascism for a longer period.

This probably depends on who wins the next election.

Western democracy and electioneering in particular is now all about political marketing.

And political marketing communication.

Heuristic soundbites are a big part of electioneering.

I'm afraid to say Labour lag a long way behind the Conservatives in political marketing communication skills.

Just look at the website landing pages:

Labour, "Meet Keir Starmer" why?

Conservative "Build back better" a power-packed lie.

Labour, "Stronger together" a meaningless phrase.

Conservative, "levelling up" another clever lie.

Sorry but I don't think Labour will win the next election, even though almost everybody, even the few, are better off with Labour, and almost everybody, even the few, are worse off with the Tories.

Tories, levelling down Britain since 1689.

Labour, for the many as well as the Few.

Keynesian Mulitplier

 If a government has its own 'fiat' (independent) currency it can increase or decrease spending to influence the wider economy.

If a government increases spending in ways that stimulate the economy; the increase in the economy's spending will be higher than the government's outlay. This is a kind of economic profit or 'multiplier' and the government takes back some of the multiplier's surplus in tax to repay the initial outlay and stimulate the economy again if needed. Governments can borrow in order to stimulate an economy.

The Keynesian multiplier effect depends on the expenditure one person or business becomes the income of another. The problem with this theory when put in practise is savings. Savings take expenditure out of the economy and reduce the multiplier effect. In fact savings in the form of investing in buying houses may have contributed to the stagflation of the 1970s. More high quality council housing might have staved off stagflation (sorry digressing)

If a government injects £100m into an economy to be spent by individuals whose socio-demographic profile indicates they'll spend all of it; socio-economic groups C2, D &E. The following sequence takes place. It is known from the post war Keynesian golden years that this happens,

The recipients will spend 90% of the income that is £90m on goods and services. The recipients also spend c90% of the £90m income from consumers this is £81m. Experience of the 1950s & 60s indicates this multiplier goes on for ten rounds so the initial £100,m outlay stimulates the economy by around £1billion

The multiplier effect also creates jobs, the increased individual and business spending bring in tax revenue the repay the initial government outlay.

The Tory government belive in the 18th century ideology that the government should do nothing. The bank of England try to stimulate the economy with what they call Quantitative Easing (QE) where they buy government and corporate bonds, this has limited effect.

Labour don't seem to have an economic direct just now but it could be expected to be Keynesian. The big, big problem now is that Britain's got no industry left. So any fiscal stimulus aimed at the consumer would be spent in China, India and similar. These overseas areas that have taken British manufacturing couldn't spend in Britain even if they wanted to. OK, they do buy property, luxury cars and yachts, but not enough to make a Keynesian pinprick.

As Britain has become a 'service' economy that doesn't make much anymore the only solution would be for the government to spend so as to stimulate this sector.

The Tories claim everything in the economy is rosy but this is just not true. Britain is in decline and the consumers who could rescue the economy going to be hit with four massive shocks. Brexit, covid, surging energy prices and backlash from Russian sanctions.

My advice to a Labour leader is, do not win the next election!

What Russia could do with Ukraine?

10 steps for Russia to solve the Ukraine/NATO issue.

They might learn from and follow the example of the oldest and most successful political party in the world...

The Tories.

1. Set up a political party that resonates with mainstream Ukraine attitudes. 
2. Model it on the Tory party.
3. Develop heuristic soundbites directly linked to populist views, beliefs and attitudes. Tory ones are great. Levelling up, build back better, get Brexit (NATO) done. Just follow the ideas of Boris Johnson, he's got an amazingly astute political imagination.
4. Bring back Dominic Cummings.
5. Use the methods employed by Cummings and AggregateIQ to become the democratically elected governing party.
6. Promise a referendum on NATO like David Cameron did for Brexit.
7. Promote 'free' and open social media, especially Facebook.
8. When the time is right hold a referendum on NATO membership.
9. Use Facebook advertising like Dominic Cummings used to win Brexit to win the NATO referendum.
10. Once in government make full use of Ukraine's special relationship with the EU for the benefit of Russia. A free trade agreement between Russia and your government in Ukraine would effectively mean a free trade deal with the EU.

Democracy is a malleable political concept isn't it Dom?